North Carolina stayed home in Week 3 of the college football season and took on its first FCS opponent of the season beating NC Central 45-10.
The game started out slow and even with NC Central taking seven minutes to score first. UNC scored 17 unanswered points before NC Central hit a field goal to go into the halftime break 17-10.
After an underwhelming third quarter, UNC picked it up in the fourth scoring 28 points on four touchdowns to win the game.
Heading into the game with just three total tackles, defensive back Kaleb Cost led the team in tackles with eight total including four solo tackles on the night. He also had a pass deflect and a half-sack along the way.
Cost also intercepted NC Central in the fourth quarter for not only his first interception of his career but the first for UNC’s defense this season.
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Teams have been targeting Cost this season due to his inexperience as Brown pointed out postgame:
“We’ve got to remember Kaleb didn’t play last year, really, and he missed spring practice. So he gets better every day,” Brown said.”And people pick on the star, they pick on the nickel, because he is a man cover guy, but doesn’t have the same number of snaps outside that those corners have. That’s all they do is cover. So I felt like he got a lot better tonight. I was really proud of the interception. He made some really good tackles.”
Antavious Lane was second to Cost and Amare Campbell in tackles with five total tackles including three solos. Jakeen Harris, the NC State transfer, had four tackles as well.
The defensive backs stepped up and led the defense in this game after getting carried by the line and linebackers for the first two weeks of the year.
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